Barış Yarkadaş, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was subpoenaed to a court for testimony on Thursday.
Yarkadaş was subpoenaed by the İstanbul Anadolu 68th Penal Court of First Instance. “We will go to the court and defend what we argued before,” he said in a post on Twitter.
The move comes shortly after the government’s lift of parliamentary immunities in a way mainly applicable for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies in practice. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had earlier made clear that the new regulation would be used to prosecute HDP deputies on “terrorism” charges.
On Wednesday, two lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Ahmet Yıldırım and Burcu Çelik Özkan, were also subpoenaed to a court, as HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş told the media.
The Ministry of Justice has already sent 682 motions against 152 deputies, whose parliamentary immunities were removed, to prosecutors’ offices. It was reported that the motions include accusations against main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) head Devlet Bahçeli.